Greenbeard. Richard James Bentley

funds. Plunderable treasure had been scarce in recent times.

      Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, to cool his brain and thus aid ratiocination, removed his black tricorn hat, revealing a shiny pink bald pate, in contrast to his ever-growing yellow beard.

      “I could check out my newspaper contacts…” Captain Greybagges mused, adding “Look’ee” as an afterthought. He wrote an occasional gossip column upon piratical affairs for the Port de Racailles Gleaner, which was syndicated in the Tortugas Times, the Port Of Spain Plain-Dealer and even, to his delight, the Poole Advertiser, where the infamous Harry Paye would surely read it, or have it read to him at least. The recompense was welcome, of course, the prices of rum, tar, hempen rope, gunpowder and shot being what they were, but the main attraction of the arrangement was not the one-eighth-of-a-Reale-per-word but the quantity of scuttlebutt, rumour and chat that came to his ears. It was also pleasant to practise what the tutors of Eton and the Fellows of Cambridge had taught to him in the days of his more-or-less innocent youth. The scritch of goose-quill upon vellum had a comforting sound, and the influence of that pen – oh! but the Bard was right! – ensured that even cutthroat villains like Eddie Teach and that bloody jumped-up Welshman Henry Morgan were at least polite to him.

      “Har!” Israel Feet cleared his throat, “There’s many that goes to Madame Zonga’s for lovesome sport and frolicking, ye’ll ken, and there’s many of them as’as loose tongues, look’ee, an’ damn yer eyes!” The company only wrestled with this for a second, for it was one of Feet’s more intelligable utterances. It was also known that Madame Zonga had a soft spot for Israel Feet, since he had been kindly to her in the early years of her career, when she had been merely Dottie Pigge. They nodded their understanding.

      “Avast! Methinks we shall visit Madame Zonga’s betimes, after a bottle or two and a mortress of beef to settle the vitals. Ye can work your wiles and cozen some secrets out of the old trollop then, Izzie. Blast yer liver and vitals if ye cannot!” Captain Greybagges took a reflective sip of rum from his chased-silver goblet. The four were silent for a moment as each considered, in his own way, a vision of the rat-like first mate working wiles upon the well-upholstered Madame Zonga.

      “The plantations of His Majesty’s North American colonies are supposed to have enjoyed much prosperity of late,” opined Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo, “and they may be ripe for plunder and rapine. A raid by land would be necessary, but that has not been unknown to gentlemen of fortune such as ourselves, surely?”

      “Arr!” said Captain Greybagges, fixing Blue Peter briefly with his grey eyes, and said no more. The first mate and the sailing master sympathised with the African, for he was an escaped slave and regarded slave owners with a natural distaste - and indeed who of the Free Brotherhood of the Coasts did not? – but even with his elegant tact he had still reminded their captain of the celebrated success of Bloody Morgan in taking the City of Panama, a hugely-profitable land operation that Captain Greybagges had refused to take part in, thinking it ill-judged and foolishly risky. He had been proved wrong, and had not shared in the enormous, the almost-unbelievable plunder. But who could have foreseen that the Spaniards would have left Panama’s western approaches undefended? A bloody jumped-up Welshman, that was who. They kept their own counsel and avoided Blue Peter’s black eyes, their whites yellow and blood-shot, as he looked to them for support.

      “Arr!” squeaked Bulbous Bill Bucephalus, eager to change the subject. “I buys me hot peppers from a half-breed cove name of Denzil.” The searing chillied stews that the sailing-master made were much appreciated by the piratical crew of the Ark de Triomphe as a sovereign cure for hangovers. He could not be expected to maintain his vast bulk on an unvarying diet of oatmeal burgoo and salt-horse and pease, after all, so even the ship’s cook did not object too much when he was booted out of the galley to let Bulbous Bill perform culinary experiments. It was true that Bulbous Bill’s cookery was not always entirely successful – when he had simmered a hyena with pot-herbs, for example, he had made himself a laughingstock – but any additions to the menu were usually welcome. They sensed that there was more yet to come, and waited patiently as Bulbous Bill sipped rum from his lignum-vitae beaker and knotted his brows to concentrate his thoughts.

      “The man Denzil, ye sees, he gets his hottest peppers from them Spanish Americas. Goes down there in his little boat, a-sailin’ an’ a-fishin’. One o’ them double-ended canoes with a littler canoe on the side on two planks, it be. At the first he got them peppers from Cayenne, of course, but he likes ’em hotter an’ hotter, so he sails up and down the coast, and sometimes he wanders inshore a-ways. Looking fer them peppers.” Bulbous Bill took another pull of his rum. “Anyways, being a half-breed, his ole Carib indian mother taught him the Carib lingo. Wasn’t the right lingo to talk to them Cayenne indians, ye ken, but it gives him the advantage of not bein’ civilised as are the likes of us so he picks up a lot of those Cayenne indians’ lingoes fair quickly, and now he speaks their lingoes pretty well.” The pirates were paying close attention now. “Seems to me, iffen we was to be friendly, and axes him nice, and gives him some money, he may keep his ears open for things that may be to our advantage. Them indians hates them Spaniards like poison, so they do. They’d give us the nod outa sheer devilment an’ spite, an’ be damned pleased with theyselves for doing so.”

      “That,” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges musingly, “is a very good idea. A very good idea indeed.” He blinked. “Pon me life, ye rascal! A blasted fine piece o’ headwork it be, and here’s me hand upon’t, damn yez!” He roared, pounding the wobbly table so that the pirates all grabbed for their drinks. “A fat fool ye may be, but ye be a fat fool with a headpiece upon yez! Blast me vitals, else!”

      “Bill, old chum, I am in admiration of your sagacity!” agreed Blue Peter. “That is indeed a capital lucubration! A cerebration of the very first order! I observe, in passing, that was exactly the strategy that Sir Francis Drake utilised in his matchless endeavours to relieve the Dons of their coinage, specie and bullion back in the days of Good Queen Bess, and I can give no higher praise than that! Let us refill our glasses and raise them in a toast to Bulbous Bill Bucephalus, that paragon of incisive analysis!”

      Blue Peter filled Bulbous Bill’s lignum-vitae beaker with rum, the bottle nearly lost in his huge blue-black hand, then Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges’s chased-silver goblet, then Israel Feet’s tarred leather drinking-jack and lastly his own tumbler of precious diamond-cut Bohemian crystal, and the buccaneers toasted Bulbous Bill Bucephalus, who simpered modestly, his many chins and jowls wobbling. Israel Feet then proposed a toast to Great Good Fortune, with many a “Har!” and many a “Scupper me gizzards, else!” and so the rum bottle was empty. Captain Greybagges looked at his officers fondly.

      “So, messmates, we have our duties for the morn. Bulbous Bill shall proceed with his wily plan to sound out this Denzil cully, softening his heart towards us with sweet words and golden coins. Izzie here shall cozen Madame Zonga for the secrets that sleepy satisfied coves may have murmurred in the shell-like ears of her girls. I myself shall write letters to my correspondents and snitches,” and here he smiled at Blue Peter, “and Blue Peter may plot fire, ruin and plunder upon the slave-drivers of Virginny and Kentuck, for his plan to raid by land may be useful in days to come. I am not agin the notion, ye sees. No, I only wish to see it happen when it is timely and we are well prepared, for the Colonials can be rare plucked-uns when they be a-riled-up.”

      A feeling of harmony and piratical brotherhood came over the four buccaneers with these well-chosen words. Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges placed his black three-cornered hat back on his shiny bald pate, signalling that the plotting was over and that the roistering should begin. He pounded the table with his meaty fist. “Wench! Bring us rum! Damn ye eyes! Bring us RUM!” The serving-wench peered round the corner from the tap-room and nodded. “And can we have some nibbles, too?” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges.

      In the morning, the late morning, Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges woke from deep slumber in the Great Cabin of the Ark de Triomphe, the high sun shining in his eyes through the tall stern windows. He yawned and